"'We have said think it over. Think twice', Wang is quoted as saying, 'It will create a huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction. It is not something you are good at so please think twice.' Wang went on to suggest that if Microsoft moves ahead with its tablet plans, the Taiwan-based Acer might replace the software giant as a partner. 'If Microsoft is going to do hardware business, what should we do? Should we still rely on Microsoft, or should we find other alternatives?', he is quoted as saying." Or, you could just build stuff that doesn't suck. Just a suggestion, Acer.

Acer normally do a terrible job when it comes to things like ACPI compliance, I had to force linux to use a DSDT image with Fedora Core 4 as the one in the hardware was very Windows Specific.

Not disagreeing, but to be fair...

This may be indicative of their presence as a Windows OEM. In other words, they had no interest in meeting standards because if it "Just Works" for Windows then that was good enough. It may even be possible that they were encouraged in this attitude.

A foray out of the Magic Kingdom may result in a different view towards things like ACPI.

Well Dell is pretty big Windows partner as well, and my D430 worked fine even though it was Windows Vista certified.

In any case, the shoddy workman-ship ... is totally independent of whether they are a Microsoft Partner or not.

Crap bios/dsdt etc. etc. can always be replaced as they are just software on a ROM. However mistakes like the thermal paste not being applied properly, inexcusable ... never should have gotten past QA.

I tend to buy "business" orientated notebooks these days now ... less pain even though they are more expensive.

Some companies will do it properly and others will take short-cuts. Dell for the most part don't (especially on those machines they sell to "business") and Lenovo/IBM have traditionally been pretty solid.

I am quite excited by the Microsoft Surface itself, I might be an early adopter ... first computer product I have been excited about in a long time.